Google

At a talk by a Google guy recently who said some surprising things:
1. It only takes 3 days for them to reach 3m users with a new product.
2. Their aim is to get every user off the Google site as soon as possible.
3. We must not take the dominance of English for granted.
On the first point, they do this by launching beta versions only, because, apparently, 'we don't understand the potential of these products as well as our customers do'. Google Earth has changed the face of real estate sales in the US because realtors adapted it as a sales tool, allowing them to view the property from their laptop with the buyer in real time and factor in added elements such as services, road links, schools nearby etc.
On the second point, I think this is intuitively right: Google's pleasing ability to springboard you to where you want to go so quickly gives a satisfying smoothness to the experience. Fits with the minimalist look of their homepage too.
On the third point, speaking in Dublin, he mentioned that there are now 167 languages spoken in the Dublin area (acc. to Maynooth U. research)! 'We' - the indigenous population - continue to foster a stockade mentality towards non-English languages. And to be impatient with the efforts of non-English speakers to learn 'our' language when we make no effort at all to learn theirs!